Travels of an Australian Swami

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Monthly Archives: January 2014

The devotees around Auckland organised a 6 day family festival that saw nearly 80 devotees travel to Waitangi in the north of New Zealand. Waitangi is the famous place where in 1840 The British signed a treaty with the Maori that was first signed by 43 Northlands chiefs and then by over 500 Maori chiefs as it was taken around the country over an 8 month period.

The devotees stayed at a Marae ( a communal sacred place for Maoris) that had wonderful facilities for accommodation, cooking, kirtan and other programs. Everyone was careful to preserve the sanctity of the Marae so as to not upset the Maori Elders. I was able to participate for a few days and it was wonderful to have everyone’s association in such a relaxed setting.

It’s always a pleasure visiting the Wellington yatra. We have two centres here, one down town known as Gaura Yoga and the other at Newlands, a nearby suburb.

When I visit the devotees usually come from both centres to attend kirtan and lectures, sometimes at the Gaura Yoga centre and other times at the Newlands centre.

The Newlands centre is planning an extension to the temple building and is raising funds from well wishers. Recently, next door, they opened another “Higher Taste” cafe that especially deals in take-aways. It’s only been open a month but business is picking up nicely.

It has been over three years since the first of the big earthquakes struck Christchurch and the city is still pulling down damaged buildings and constructing thousands of new ones. I have been told that it will take at least 10 years for the city to get completely back on its feet.

Our temple was damaged in the first earthquake and when the second one hit it was deemed irreparable and had to be demolished. The devotees rallied and continued their Krsna Conscious activities in halls and devotee’s homes.

In the meantime, as soon as the City Council gives its formal approval, a new temple will be built on the same land as the old one, and by Krsna’s grace it will have even more facilities than before.

Pictured in their home are Jananivas, Krsna Kanta and family, with whom I stayed during my last visit.

Venugopal Prabhu, from New Govardhana, is a devotee of more than 40 years standing. He has been a temple president in Brisbane and Cairns where he served in those roles with distinction.

Currently, he is the co-director, along with Ajita Prabhu, of the New Govardhana community at Eungella, Northern NSW. He and other devotees are active in looking after more than 80 cows, bullocks and a bull. Most of the herd is Gir and Friesian breeds.

As you would expect, looking after the cows is quite demanding and the hours are long, from early in the morning to late in the afternoon. Nevertheless, the devotees performing this service look very blissful.

I especially found the Girs to be friendly and affectionate. They followed me around to get fed and scratched. There’s a resident goose, by the name of Bruce, who must think he’s a cow because instead of living with other geese, he lives in the goshalla.

For over 10 years the devotees from New Govardhana have been catering at the Woodford Folk festival. It is said that a few hundred thousand people attend this festival over a 6 day period.

This year it was especially hot with temperatures around 40 degrees and humidity at 80%. Still the devotees served out ten thousand plates of prasadam and sold many books.

There was also a Rathayatra parade held in the evenings with the big Lord Jagannatha cart from the temple used. Needless to say, all the people who attended the Woodford festival got the special mercy of seeing Lord Jagannatha riding atop His splendid Ratha cart.

The Adelaide temple management organised programs every night at the temple for my last visit there. It was nice to see so many devotees attend even though the temperature outside was over 40 degrees that week. Luckily, there is air-conditioning in the temple so we danced in kirtan without feeling too hot.

Satananda Krsna also took me to the South Australian Arts Gallery where for the last two months there has been an exhibition on Hindu, Jain and Islamic cultures in India. The Art Gallery asked the devotees to help with the Hindu exhibition and we had paintings of Radha and Krishna, books and other paraphernalia displayed.

One of the highlights was a beautiful wooden murti of Lord Krishna that was donated for the exhibition by a local couple from Adelaide.

The Meredith Music Festival is a three-day outdoor music festival held every December at the “Supernatural Amphitheatre”, a natural amphitheatre located on private farmland near the town of Meredith in Victoria, Australia.

This event was started in the 90’s and the devotees have been involved for the last 10 years. In 2013 we served wonderful prasadam to over 15,000 people in attendance. The devotees also led kirtan around areas where various festival activities were going on.